UA 'princess' calls on American Indian grads to take education home

Shonnie, a 22-year-old University of Arizona chemical engineering senior, said college-educated American Indians should return home and use what they have learned to help their people.

In turn, those living on tribal lands should ask students what is missing from reservation life.

"We have to go back and ask students why are they doing this," she said. "Why are they leaving?"

Shonnie, who earned the princess title two weeks ago, said growing up on the Dine' Navajo reservation has helped her understand the problems associated with keeping educated Native Americans at home.

She plans to return home and apply what she learned in college to the Navajo reservation.

Shonnie will travel around the state and the nation representing the UA at Northern Arizona University, Arizona State University, the Navajo reservation and the Gathering of The Nations, the biggest powwow in the United States.

Her goal as princess is to establish a network of American Indian organizations on campus by next summer.

"In the past years I have been here, I have never seen them really work together, and I really want to see them work together," Shonnie said.

Through the Native American Resource Center, she plans to inform incoming freshman of available options and organizations.

"New Start is awesome," Shonnie said of the program that helped her when she was a freshman. She said she hopes the program can ease others' transition to university life like it did for her.

Ideally, Shonnie envisions more summer programs to prepare students for the university, but is aware of financial constraints.

She said she also plans to build a Web page featuring the past winners of the pageant and three other projects in the future. She spent her summer teaching young people about Internet sites and developing communication skills for the Minority Engineering Program.

Since last semester, Shonnie has worked for the program maintaining its Web page. Through the engineering program, she has spent much of her time helping students from elementary through university level.

She switched her major to chemical engineering with an environmental emphasis her junior year, after being dissatisfied as a pharmacy student.

"I can go back to my Navajo reservation and help start programs and deal with environmental issues there," she said.

Shonnie was raised in Pinon, on the Navajo reservation, by her mother and grandparents until second grade, when she transferred to a Christian private school.

After fifth grade, she moved to Phoenix with her mother until her junior year of high school. Her mother wanted to move back to the reservation to help out her grandparents, but Shonnie chose to stay in high school in Flagstaff.

She lived in a dormitory for students from the Navajo and Hopi reservations and was crowned Miss Dookooslid Princess that year.

"That was the first time I learned about my culture, about myself," she recalled of her experience in the dormitory.

Shonnie shared some of that knowledge in her performance for the pageant - playing the piano, then teaching the symbolism of the Navajo cradle board.

Although she played the piano in high school, Shonnie said she was happier with her cradle board demonstration.

"I totally blew the first talent, but once I start teaching people about something I really know, I feel more relaxed and it flows smoothly," she said.

Shonnie was surprised that she was chosen as the new UA princess.

"I really thought I wasn't going to win - I am just here to have fun with it," she said.

Jesus Lopez Jr. can be reached via e-mail at Jesus.Lopez.Jr@wildcat.arizona.edu.